


What Remains

by Usami_chan13



Category: YuYu Hakusho
Genre: Deathfic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-25
Updated: 2012-05-25
Packaged: 2017-11-05 23:55:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/412446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Usami_chan13/pseuds/Usami_chan13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, people don't realize the legacy they leave behind...</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Remains

**Author's Note:**

> Based on an event that happened once when I was still in college. I wrote this story to deal with it after the fact.

If asked, Botan would say that the hardest part of her job was seeing a person die.

Sometimes she was lucky. Sometimes she would arrive long after the person’s death, and the soul was already separated from the body, waiting for her to take them away to the Reikai. Those days were simple.

But other times, like her assignment today, she would arrive just moments _before_ the individual’s death, to be there and take them away before they can realize…before they can regret. She had to come early in cases that were high-risk for becoming ghosts that haunted the mortal plane. Because after countless years of ferrying souls, she learned that many people just didn’t understand the impact of their death.

A soul that remains too long after death might be touched by the tears of family and friends, and suffer the pain of their own passing through their loved ones. They begin to experience the guilt of leaving those people so close to them, of hurting them this way and never having the chance to comfort them again. And they begin to remember the life they once had, or imagine the life of what could have been if they had survived. They soon believe their death to be a mistake, and become obsessed with the desire to remain alive, even though it’s much too late.

So she had to come early, to escort the soul to the next world before they become too attached to what they leave behind. For order to be maintained, it was important that she did her job, and that she did it well.

But that didn’t make it easy. She hated those moments, as she floated above the oblivious people and could do nothing but _wait_ for them to die. Moments like now, as she anxiously sat on her oar within the small university classroom, watching a professor and student exchange words in a heated argument. She knew what to expect, and could claim no surprise when the student suddenly pulled out a gun and aimed it at his own head.

Still, knowing what would happen didn’t make it any better. Closing her eyes, she turned away from the scene as the professor’s reasoning tone was drowned out by the thunderous bang.


End file.
